Flood
Monday, October 26, 2009
I should have recognized it was a sign when the sermon that morning was on paradigm shifts. The idea of God throwing our world into chaos in order to bring us closer to his visions, echoed in our ears as we decided to go spend the rest of the Sunday in Lake Norman. It wasn’t my first Sunday with the Hillis Family including all ten of their children and incredibly energetic parents. Due to the loss of a biological son a few years ago, the Hillis’ opened up their home to adopt, two children from Russia, and then another one came, and then two more, and then three more, all having their own personalities and problems as well as past histories that could confuse even the most dedicated case workers. What makes them special is that every single member of the family is ready to gather what life throws at them and make the drama the best it can possibly be. They have become a family in the most mature sense of the word.
That Sunday one of us said, “I thought this morning how much I wanted to see a miracle,” and as it turned out one of us would be baptized by the mother, Susan. We spent the day on JetSkis and playing in the water, and enjoying each other as we said goodbye to summer.
Then that night we received the phone call. The parents had returned home with half of the children so that they could go back to school, and I was on my way back to Las Vegas when Christie got the call at 4am, she instantly thought something was wrong. The Hillis’ house in Georgia was being flooded by rain as her mother spoke into the phone. Flood water kept rising and it had hit the first floor of the Hillis’ house and was steadily seeping into the second. The boys of the family all lived downstairs and were the first to wake up when the pressure from the water had built up so that all the windows and doors burst open and water came rushing in. When I got off the phone with Christie telling me the news, all I could think was how could this happen to such good people.
I used to think the life of faith was supposed to be easy. You just held onto the belief that no matter what, all things work together for good. For many, this is the definition of faith. I buy into this, say my prayers at night, and somehow there will be a happy ending. But even if you adopt 8, or 10, or 20 Russian children, it doesn’t mean that you’re covered for any of the disasters that can sideswipe you. “It’s all just stuff,” Christie said. And of course, she was right. It is all. Just. stuff. The difference is when it’s your stuff and it’s what you’ve been dependent on. The Hillis’ have never had a lavish lifestyle, what they have they need is what they have, little more. All of a sudden that “stuff” can seem vital when it is taken away. Then the faithful seem to be permanently living in the Land of the Fucked, where nothing goes the way it should to and you have to be ready for what the rain water brings. However, living in the Land of the Fucked also allows us to call things exactly what they are , so that stuff can be let go of because we need all the power and the ability to cling to the truth rather when we live in a world that teaches us to clutch “stuff” under the guise of calling it security.
In one weekend we saw the many things that water can bring, from healing and recovery, to devastation. When I was little, I found myself clutching to safety at the edge of any pool I went into—even when I had a life jacket wrapped around me. I started to say when I went swimming, but the truth is when you’re clutching at the wall you’re not swimming at all. It’s more of a holding on and not noticing anything else. And in this way we miss what the water brings to us until one day, even after we’ve tried so hard to beat it, the water changes our lives, and we have to—if we haven’t already—learn to swim.
To learn more about the Hillis Family, please visit: http://www.rebuildthehillishouse.webs.com/